The video depicts a character's efforts to survive in the remains of an infected city, scrounging for supplies to craft weapons like electrified blades a la Dead Island. The survivor scales buildings with ease and essentially treats zombies as goombas by lunging over them in free-running sprints reminiscent of Mirror's Edge. A time-sensitive choice is shown in the demo between saving a child or rushing to beat opposing forces to a supply drop, serving to make the passing of time more than just an aesthetic change to the overworld.

The game's website states that nightfall makes zombies more aggressive and draws out predators that "only appear after sundown." A stealth mechanic called the "night sense" disperses soundwaves that depict whether an enemy poses a threat or is aware of the player's movement, similar to Mark of the Ninja.

Dying Light is planned to launch sometime in 2014 for the PC, PS3, PS4, 360 and Xbox One.